Livie's Friend
Reporter
Grandpa Zebulon Walton:Child, there are mysteries in this life that none of us can understand as yet
Posts: 265
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Post by Livie's Friend on Dec 22, 2023 7:05:42 GMT -5
We just watched It's a Wonderful Life and watched Beulah and Ellen in it. You can see touches of their true personalities when they were young and then when they were older in The Waltons.
Ms. Bondi was phenomenal in The Waltons. I hung on her every word; they were so full of experience and wisdom.
My grandmother was also an amazing woman. She lost her husband at a very young age and raised my Dad by herself. She didn't remarry until he married my mother. She was very frugal and hard working.
She learned to speak English and her accent was so amusing to me. She had that cantankerous temper that both Martha Corinne and Esther had on the show.
As she got old, I would sit with her and listen. She was from another world; another place in time, and I loved hearing about those hard times that I would know nothing about.
At her funeral, I heard so many funny stories about her. I treasure them.
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Post by runhard on Dec 23, 2023 22:43:02 GMT -5
She was a great character actress and yes she was a wonderful Martha Corinne too but as Richard Thomas said in his interview with the Archive of American Television that Will Geer was "kind of enraged" when she was cast. The reason for that was as Richard Thomas said was because Will had been blacklisted and couldn't work for some time and Beulah Bondi had been Adolphe Menjou a friendly witness to HUAC. It must not have been very comfortable for Will to do the amount of scenes he had with her in the two episodes she appeared.
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Livie's Friend
Reporter
Grandpa Zebulon Walton:Child, there are mysteries in this life that none of us can understand as yet
Posts: 265
|
Post by Livie's Friend on Dec 24, 2023 7:08:34 GMT -5
I had no idea about that issue between Beulah and Will. That must have been very difficult, but their professionalism won over.
To this day, I don't understand why some were accused of being un-American and others weren't.
This interview clip was so interesting; thanks for posting, Bill.
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Post by Easton on Dec 24, 2023 10:58:27 GMT -5
To this day, I don't understand why some were accused of being un-American and others weren't. HUAC stood for 'House Un-American Activities Committee' which was formed to investigate subversions and subversive propaganda toward the United States and its government. In other words, 'Communism'. When the entertainment industry (movies, music, etc.) became suspected of promoting Communism, it fell under the investigation of the HUAC. Charlie Chaplin, for one, left the United States rather than face the committee, which, under the HUAC, automatically branded Chaplin as a Communist. Such was the power of the HUAC.
Will Geer was another victim, but he was blacklisted merely for standing up for his principles and loyalties by refusing to testify in front of the committee against his friends and acquaintances who were suspected of being Communist. For years, he couldn't get a job except for films being made by other blacklisted film makers. His hatred of Beulah Bondi was from her continued support and friendships with others in the movie industry who testified for the Committee against other people in the industry. To Will, Beulah was a traitor, as was anyone else who testified against their friends.
Those who didn't cooperate with the HUAC were blacklisted. Those who did, weren't. Think of it as a 'witch hunt'.
By the way, the Committee still exists.
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